Edwin Meese, III. Seventy-Fifth Attorney General 1985-1988. Edwin Meese, III was born on December 2, 1931 in Oakland, California. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1953 and earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law in 1958.
Following the 1984 election, he was considered for the position of White House Chief of Staff by President Reagan, but George H. W. Bush was chosen instead. Meese eventually rose to hold the position of the 75th United States Attorney General (1985–1988), a position from which he resigned following the Wedtech scandal.
In the mid-1980s, there was a federal investigation into Meese's connections and alleged financial improprieties related to his efforts to help the Bechtel Corporation build an Iraqi pipeline. The pipeline was to extend from Iraq to Jordan and was negotiated by Meese, Shimon Peres, Bruce Rappaport, Robert C. McFarlane, and others.
Meese retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 1984. Meese returned to California, obtaining a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where he was a state Moot Court champion.
He argued that a Supreme Court decision “does not establish ‘a supreme law of the land’ that is binding on all persons and parts of the government, henceforth and forever more.”. Meese stood on firm ground.
In his 86 years , he has lived the life of an authentic public servant and become the living embodiment of the Reagan Revolution.
They hailed Supreme Court Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. when he described the constitutional views endorsed by Meese as “little more than arrogance cloaked as humility.” Defending his judicial activism, Brennan stressed the need to adapt the Constitution “to cope with current problems and current needs.”
During his tenure at the helm of the Department of Justice, Meese was a leader in the war on drugs, international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, and a crucial voice of conscience when the Administration confronted the Iran-Contra affair.
His goal was to persuade judges, even Supreme Court justices, to agree they should respect the text of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders who wrote it.
Meese was instrumental in Reagan’s success at lowering taxes, stimulating economic growth, winning the Cold War, and restoring America’s confidence after years of poor leadership by several presidents.
Meese was not a revolutionary but an apostle of ordered liberty—the prudential blending of individual liberty and political order under the Constitution and through a jurisprudence of Original Intention. The “Great Debate” that he started three decades ago placed the idea of judicial originalism at the center of American jurisprudence. It fundamentally altered the constitutional landscape of this nation. Let us now praise the man who initiated that debate and helped preserve and protect our liberties and those of generations to come.
Former attorney general Edwin Meese III explains the relationship between President Reagan and Pope John Paul II and how their collaboration helped end the Cold War.
Former attorney general Edwin Meese III explains the relationship between President Reagan and Pope John Paul II and how their collaboration helped end the Cold War.
Special Rerelease of the First Episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Twenty-One Years Later.
There are over a thousand books on the subject of Ronald Reagan and his presidency. Some books offer keen insight into the man and benefit those seeking an accurate picture of the Reagan years. Unfortunately, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard’s latest offering, “Killing Reagan,” is not among them.
Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, keenly aware of simmering voter discontent, stood together to announce a criminal justice reform bill purportedly designed to balance the wishes of the political left’s sentencing reform movement and the conservative, “tough on crime” crowd on Capitol Hill.
In 1878, William Gladstone described the U.S. Constitution as “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.” Gladstone was right.
Two questions will dictate not only the future of healthcare, but also the balance of power between Washington, D.C., and the states, and the separation of powers between the federal branches. One concerns state sovereignty, the other the heckler's veto.
Edwin Meese III served on the Council for National Policy (CNP) Executive Committee in 1994 and as CNP President in 1996. Meese was "distinguished fellow and holder of the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy, the Heritage Foundation; former Attorney General of the U.S.; Counselor to the President, 1981-1985; former Chief of Staff and Senior Issues Advisor for the Reagan-Bush Committee; former president, Council for National Policy; former professor of law, University of San Diego; former vice president for administration, Rohr Industries.
During his Senate confirmation hearing to become Ronald Reagan 's Attorney General, Edwin Meese faced difficult questions from Democratic Senators. One area of questioning regarded an unsecured loan for $60,000 on which he did not pay any interest on for over 20 months, after it was noted the Washington Post. The loan had come from a trust fund managed by John McKean, who Meese barely knew, but had supported to be a Reagan appointed member of Postal Service board of governors. Another line of questioning regarded Meese's role in the Reagan Administration's decision to back out from their support for the IRS determination to revoke Bob Jones University 's tax-exempt status, because of its interracial dating/marriage policies.
"The Dangerous Federalization of Crime," Hoover Digest, 1999, No. 3: "Federal crimes used to be limited to matters that truly involved the whole nation, such as treason and counterfeiting. But lately the federal government has been amending its criminal statutes to take over more and more criminal prosecution from the states. Edwin Meese III on an especially pernicious form of federal aggrandizement."
In the mid-1970s, Meese returned to private practice and taught law school until Reagan's 1980 campaign for president stumbled in the early going. Meese came aboard to run the daily campaign functions, and Reagan was soon the party front-runner again.
Meese was accused of unethical conduct in office at the time, and a report by the onetime Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox cited him for "blindness to the abuse of position.". Further allegations followed.
Meese was part of Reagan's conservative surge in the Republican Party of the mid-1960s "movement conservatives" who strove to rebuild the party after its disastrous defeat in the presidential election of 1964. Reagan's election as governor of California in 1966 signaled the party's comeback and pointed the way toward its rightward shift.
Trump To Honor Ed Meese, Close Adviser To Reagan Who Left Under Ethics Cloud Edwin Meese III was part of Ronald Reagan's surge among "movement conservatives" who strove to rebuild the Republican Party after its disastrous defeat in the presidential election of 1964.
As urban unrest grew in the 1960s, Meese and a close friend, Lowell Jensen, were deputy district attorneys taking a hard line on crime and political activism on the left, including toward student protesters in Berkeley and early manifestations of the Black Panther movement in Oakland.
Meese was Gov. Reagan's legal secretary, then his executive assistant and finally chief of staff. He was a close confidante at some of Reagan's stormiest moments, as when his crackdown turned deadly during the People's Park protests in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969.